Microwork and Virtual Production Networks in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia

November 2013 -

This project aims to understand the current and potential impact of Internet and mobile technologies on social and economic development, especially when it comes to the emergence of new and transformative 'virtual' economic activities and work.

Overview

Sub-Saharan Africa has traditionally been characterised by stark barriers to non-proximate
communication and flows of information. However, in the last few years, there have been radical
changes to SSA's international connectivity; fibre-optic cables have been laid throughout the
continent and there are now almost one hundred million Internet users and over seven hundred
million mobile users in the region. This rapid transformation in the region's connectivity has
encouraged politicians, journalists, academics, and citizens to speak of an Internet-fuelled
economic revolution happening on the continent. For the first time in decades, Sub-Saharan
Africa is receiving more capital through investment than in foreign aid and many see the
potential for SSA to move away from dependence on agriculture and extractive industries and
towards a focus on the quaternary and quinary sectors (in other words, the knowledge-based parts
of the economy).

However, while much research has been conducted into the impacts of ICTs into older economic
processes and practices, there remains surprisingly little research into the emergence of new
transformative Internet and mobile-based economic activities and work in Africa. The question
therefore remains if, and under which circumstances, we are seeing a new era of development on
the continent fuelled by networked technologies, or whether Sub-Saharan Africa's engagement with
the global economy will continue to be on terms that reinforce dependence, underdevelopment, and
economic extraversion.

Southeast Asia (SEA) is a region that has a population and demographics comparable to SSA, but
that has enjoyed good international connectivity for somewhat longer. Due to its location
between Europe and East Asia, Southeast Asia was traversed by some of the earliest submarine
cables. A modern high-capacity fiber-optic cable providing direct links to Vietnam, Thailand,
Malaysia, Philippines and the island of Borneo was completed in 2009. Although SEA is more
prosperous than SSA, it, too, grapples with issues of development and dependency, and has seen
improved connectivity lauded as ushering in a new era of development. SEA thus provides an
interesting comparison to SSA: with socioeconomic similarities, but 3-10 years ahead of SSA in
the connectivity revolution.

Research Questions

The purpose of this research project is to understand the current and potential impact of
Internet and mobile technologies on social and economic development, especially when it comes to
the emergence of new and transformative 'virtual' economic activities and work, such as
'microwork' and 'game labour'. The project is designed to tackle this broad line of inquiry by
(1) focusing on the geographies, drivers, and effects of Sub-Saharan Africa's emerging virtual
production networks at this important moment of change on the continent, and (2) contrasting
these with developmental trajectories in Southeast Asia.

The project focuses on five core research questions:

What is the overall landscape of virtual production networks in Sub-Saharan Africa and
Southeast Asia? Such a landscape includes the range of formal and informal, institutional as
well as individual actors involved in virtual production, and their mutual relations and
geographies.

What factors explain the network structures that we see? Of interest here is what material,
institutional or cultural factors might explain the structures observed in the virtual
production networks, particularly if/when they differ from one country or region to the
other.

How are these networks changing over time? More specifically, we are interested in changes
over the life of this project, but also larger trends spanning years and decades. Are SSA and
SEA at different points of the same technology-driven development trajectory, or are they
following distinct trajectories?

Who benefits from SSA's and SEA's virtual production networks? A particular focus here is on
the potentials for the underprivileged in society, and how the structures of the networks
either benefit (e.g. by including them in production) or constrain (e.g. by placing them in
poor bargaining positions) them.

How do observed changes differ from public, political, and academic discourses surrounding
potential effects? To maximize the impact of our empirical results, we must position them
within existing debates and where necessary, challenge the existing truths.

Using a mixed-methods approach, we will be able document the challenges and barriers to
productive engagement with virtual economies. We will discover who is benefitting, what
difference remaining barriers and positionalities in SSA and SEA make, and ultimately what
difference changing connectivities make in the world's economic peripheries. This project will
thus contribute not only to academic and policy debates surrounding connectivity and Internet
access, but will also provide a robust evidence base crucial in shaping future rounds of
Internet-related development projects and plans in low-income countries.

News

Under the title, Micro-workers of the world unite, the French magazine explores the world of micro-working. It quotes Mark Graham, who says that micro-workers can often be victims of abuse. (French language article)

Similarities and differences in the hopes, expectations and fears surrounding the advent of the Uganda Railway in 1903 and the introduction of the internet to Africa in 2009 have been compared by Mark Graham and team.

Wired.co.uk reports on Mark Graham’s work on mapping patterns of work as part of a project on virtual labour. He will be visiting eight countries in Asia and Africa over two years to carry out the essential field work.

Blog

To build on Vili’s earlier post about the geographies of virtual gold farming, I want to share a bit of our spatial analysis (conducted with the help of Claudio Calvino and Stefano De Sabbata) of the data we are using in… Continue Reading →

What effects will the emergence of new and transformative 'virtual' economic activities and work (such as 'microwork' and 'game labour') have on social and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia? Mark Graham, PI of a project on [...]

Gold farming, game labour, playbor – these terms are used to refer to the harvesting of online game items, currencies, and characters with a view to selling them to earn income. As part of a new research project on online… Continue Reading →

Last week I attended an insightful workshop “IT sourcing and development: New Drivers, Models and Impacts” at the University of Manchester. The idea of this workshop was to revisit IT outsourcing which has become a significant industry and [...]

The photographs above come from a conference for online freelancers that Isis, Vili, and I attended in Manila a few days ago. The conference hall was packed with freelancers and potential freelancers looking to hear about ‘the future of [...]

The picture above was taken in Pasig City in the Philippines. The poster advertising free wifi is symbolic of the changing connectivities of a country in which more than 30 million people are now Internet users. Whereas the advert on the the left is [...]